The invention relates to lighter devices of the well-known type wherein on actuation thereof a jet of a suitable fuel such as pressurized liquid butane gas will flow out from a nozzle-valve unit and will contact ignition sparks simultaneously generated by an associated ignition system whereby to provide a burning flame, e.g. for lighting tobacco products such as cigarettes or cigars.
Presently, there are essentially two main types of such butane gas lighter, namely low standard disposable butane lighters (one way gas lighters), and high quality wind-proof butane lighters.
Of these, the former type (low standard disposable butane lighters) have the following two main deficiencies: In the actuated condition the flame burns directly on top of the nozzle from which the fuel flows out, thereby directly heating the nozzle parts and tending to impair and ultimately destroy the rubber O-ring and rubber nail inside the nozzle-valve unit for controlling the butane gas flow. While this impairment of the nozzle parts may be tolerable to a certain degree in a disposable (one way) cheap lighter, it would obviously unduly limit the useful life of a better quality lighter device. Even in the low cost disposable devices, this direct heating of the nozzle by the flame unduly limits the admissible strength of the flame to a very weak flame. This in turn causes the second deficiency of this type of lighter, namely its inherent lack of wind-proof characteristics inasmuch the weak flame is undesirably subject to extinction by even light ambient wind.
Regarding the other main type, namely high quality wind-proof butane lighters, they suffer substantially from three deficiencies. While in this type a special burning chamber in the form of a short metal tube is provided distant from the nozzle, this short metal tube is directly connected with the nozzle through a long pipe to guide the butane from the the nozzle to the short metal tube serving as the burning space. Inside said long connecting tube there is a rubber layer for providing flexibility to the arrangement whereby to maintain the connection between the burning space and the nozzle. Further connection parts are required for providing connection between the burning space (short metal tube), the long connection pipe and the nozzle and valve unit. On actuation of the lighter, the flame will burn right on top of the long connection pipe. Thus, the long pipe will be directly heated by the flame burning on top of it which tends to impair and damage the rubber cladding on the inside of the connector pipe and other assembled parts. The long connector pipe also provides direct heat transfer between the flame and the nozzle, with a tendency of the latter also become (indirectly) heated by the lighter flame, with concomitant damage to the nozzle parts. These effects of undesired direct and indirect heating of the long pipe and the nozzle combine to unduly limit the useful operative life of the device. Further, the constituent parts of this burning system: short metal tube, long pipe, connection parts, nozzle and its controlling valve, have to be precision-assembled; precision assembly may be impaired by shock impact in use of the device, whereby the device might become inoperative, such as if the movable long pipe should lose its contact with the nozzle. Finally the larger number of constituent parts of this known burning system and the criticality of precisely assembling these parts obviously tend to undesirably increase the production cost of these devices.